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DBT’S Election Year Wins: Bright Spots in a Dark Time

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Do Big Things / December 7, 2020

This year has challenged us all, universally. No matter who you are or where you live, this year has felt like a struggle to survive for many. Yet even in a dark time, we’ve steered through 2020 using our values to light our way. We still believe that we can address the tough issues with a compelling combination of innovation and inspiration. In fact, we’ve already begun working in Georgia to spark voter engagement for the Democratic Senate runoffs.

Our team has tackled topics in 2020 with both creativity and commitment even in the midst of coronavirus like climate change, criminal justice reform, voting rights, paid leave, racial justice, education, healthcare, workers’ rights and so much more. We worked equally hard to elect candidates who share these progressive priorities with a particular focus on fantastic female candidates. 

To reflect back a little of the light that continues to fire our team’s purpose with our partners, we’d like to share with you a few highlights from some of the amazing successes our clients have achieved against all odds. Here are some of our wins from this year. 

Each one was hard fought and gratifying for me, the team, and our partners:

First Up: Our 2020 Electoral Wins

  • Supermajority PAC x GOTV Campaign: “Be a Voter”
    We couldn’t be more proud of our persuasion and get out the vote campaign created in collaboration with the Supermajority team encouraging women in swing states to vote, especially in battleground states like PA, MI and AZ, along with helping them build out the biggest woman-to-woman grassroots voter outreach program ever seen — just a couple of our many successes working with the visionary Supermajority team in 2020.
  • Our Voice Our Vote Arizona x GOTV Campaign Do Big Things teamed up the young and dynamic crew at Our Voice Our Vote Arizona to create GOTV ads targeting Black and Brown voters in this critical state. We know that every vote counted in that state this year!
  • Rep. Lauren Underwood’s Congressional Win After helping Rep. Underwood turn Illinois’ 14th district blue in 2018, we partnered with her campaign again to run a multi-pronged persuasion and direct donate ads campaign, supplemented by an aggressive vote by mail message. Lauren was re-elected in a tight race that was ultimately decided by a few thousand mail ballots.
  • Rep. Marie Newman’s Congressional Win After working with Rep. Newman’s campaign for over a year to defeat an eight-term incumbent, we’re proud to announce her win as the new U.S. Representative of Illinois 3rd Congressional District.
  • The 97 Percent:  We’ve partnered with future-forward gun reform leaders to help launch a new platform called The 97 Percent – which refers to the percent of Americans who want to change the conversation in this country toward gun safety. The idea is innovative and daring – can we bring together gun owners and those who don’t own guns to find common ground and remake laws that protect us all, especially our children? Check out their new website and follow them on Twitter!
  • Amy McGrath for Senate Amy McGrath’s Senate campaign in Kentucky made an impact from the beginning — raising nearly $11 million in the first three months of the campaign. DBT partnered closely with the McGrath campaign to execute a digital-first strategy that helped raise more than $90 million and become one of the top fundraising U.S. Senate races in history. We also gave Mitch McConnell no easy row to hoe! 
  • Transform Georgia – Sheriff Races Sheriffs have massive power over arrests, jail conditions and immigration enforcement. DBT partnered with the Advancement Project to build an educational hub that informed voters about the importance of Sheriff races across Georgia to criminal justice reform and human rights. We know that electing progressive sheriffs can have a major positive impact in communities across the state and the country.   
  • Advance Native Political Leadership Native American voters make up the margin of error in several key battleground states, and young native voters in particular have the ability to tip the scale. We’re so proud to have joined forces with Advance Native Political Leadership, who spent this year scaling up on GOTV campaigns that reach out to Native voters in innovative new ways. To learn more about ANPL, visit their website. 

But The Winning Doesn’t End There!

  • Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice The Hive Fund is a public foundation that raises money and makes grants to support organizations led by Black women, Indigenous women, women of color, and others on the frontlines working to address intersecting climate, gender, and racial crises in the U.S. We worked closely with the Hive Fund, helping to explore and ultimately land both their organization name as well as their brand language. Together we crafted a brand language that spoke to their community-centered, women-led focus. Bright and contrasting tones that compliment each other along with a series of alternative marks to allow the organization to grow and evolve naturally. 
  • 50th Anniversary of Earth Day  DBT partnered with the Earth Day Network and Bullitt Foundation to build grassroots awareness and mass action around the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day. We assisted EDN in adapting messaging and outreach to the coronavirus crisis, ultimately helping them achieve 8.5 million views for their Earth Day 50 livestream and 72 million digital ad impressions including in new venues such as Connected TV (e.g. Hulu, Univision, Food Network, ESPN and Vevo) and social media influencer engagement. We developed culturally competent creative targeting new, diverse audiences typically excluded from the climate conversation with special and successful focus on those living in the Midwest and South.  Even better, we know we moved the needle to keep the climate crisis as a priority even in the midst of COVID-19.
  • Represent Justice Represent Justice is telling the stories of those impacted directly by the criminal justice system to inspire structural change. And when COVID-19 hit, prisons were not spared. We partnered with them to raise money to help get life-saving masks to those incarcerated to protect them from the virus, helping to deliver more than 25,000 masks across seven facilities. 
  • Digital Capacity Building for Grassroots Grantees In a digital first era, we worked tirelessly this year with leading grantmakers such as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Solidago Foundation, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Liberty Hill Foundation, Ford Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, Bauman Foundation and many more to provide customized training, strategic digital audits and coaching for hundreds of grassroots organization grantees around the country like Mi Familia Vota, Faith in Public Life, Community Change, NALEO and many others to help them become more digitally resilient, impactful, and ahead of the curve during the age of COVID-19. We were thrilled when Priscilla Chan herself opened our first webinar with rare disease patient advocacy groups early in the pandemic.
  • WomenStrong International Portal With partners across the globe WomenStrong International created a community platform that integrated social engagement, community building and learning.This game-changing and closed community enables partners to safely share resources, information and innovative ideas with women and girls around the world. We are proud to have helped to bring people together during these unprecedented times. 

When looking towards 2021, it’s hard to get a clear picture of what to expect. Yet after this year, we’re ready to take on whatever comes our way and build a better future for this country. The upcoming and exciting first 100 days of Joe Biden’s presidency bring a fresh & hopeful opportunity to create new conversations with Americans about the direction of our nation and its policies. We’d love to partner with you to help you rock your 2021 and 2022 goals, so don’t hesitate to fill out our inquiry form on our website! 

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